“polity” (including the rise of “sacerdotalism”); then councils; schisms; the life and worship of the church (including its piety; asceticism; domestic, social, and public life, with considerable attention to the subjects of marriage, family, and slavery); and sacred days and services (including discussion of the sacraments). A next heading is “doctrine,” under which rubric Hitchcock expounds his notion of dogmatic development, and describes various authors, writings, and “heresies” (including Gnosticism and Manicheanism). He then takes up apologetics, the Rule of Faith, the canon, and inspiration of the Bible (and lack thereof in post-biblical writings). The last major topic, theology, includes discussion of the Trinity, “anthropology,” Christology, soteriology, ecclesiology, the sacraments (again), and eschatology. This schema is also largely followed in Hitchcock’s discussion of the Nicene and post-Nicene periods, with appropriate modifications for the changed historical situation. Although Hitchcock lists no category of “social history,” one former student described how he wove contemporary issues pertaining to war, law, medicine, and science into his lectures on church history.32 Judging from class notes and incidental writings, Hitchcock gave more than usual attention to what today we would call “history of religions” and “theory” in religious studies. Both Hitchcock and Smith, it may be noted, showed more interest in the political events and social movements of their time in America than did Schaff, whose life was devoted to more strictly Christian causes.
Hitchcock declared that although it was “a luxury to learn,” that of teaching was even greater. The teacher must himself keep on learning, “have something fresh to communicate”—and when he does not, it is time to resign. Antiquarianism, Hitchcock claimed, should be relegated to the museum.33 Former students confirmed the “careful research” that went into Hitchcock’s teaching: “he did not weary of fresh investigations, even on familiar topics.”34 A friend claimed, “Who that ever heard him lecture in his class-room on Ecclesiastical History can forget his masterly picture of the past; how he made the great figures of the Apostolic age to live again…. He believed in the Holy Catholic Church and in the Communion of Saints.”35 Students testified that Hitchcock never gave the same lecture in two different classes, but always updated his presentations with the latest research.36 Student notes from his courses over the years cast doubt on the strict accuracy of this claim, although Hitchcock clearly continued to read and report on new works.
Shortly after Hitchcock’s sudden death in 1887, Philip Schaff described him as “a brilliant scholar and lecturer, with an absolute command of language”—but one whose publication record was scanty, since he considered authorship “intolerable drudgery.” In his own inaugural lecture later that year, Schaff claimed that his predecessor “always spoke like a book,” thus sparing himself the trouble of writing them.37 Another memorialist claimed that Hitchcock’s students took down what he said, “word for word,” helped by the fact that he spoke slowly and precisely—and some very detailed student notes suggest that this was not an overly extravagant claim. “He was,” the memorialist asserts, “the master of the terse, crisp, epigrammatic, condensed speech.”38
As noted above, Hitchcock left money in his will to establish a prize for excellence in church history, to be given to a member of the senior class at Union.39 This prize was sometimes used by the recipient to continue studies abroad. The Hitchcock Prize in Church History is still awarded at Union Seminary.
George Fisher: Yale Theological Departmentand Yale University
In his history of Yale Divinity School, Roland Bainton comments that from George Fisher’s published historical writings (which he praises as “impartial”), readers would never guess that he was a witty and vivacious conversationalist and teacher. So engaging was his manner of speech that some might receive the misimpression that he had fallen prey to “secularization.”40 Upon Fisher’s death, one memorialist commented, “So delightful was Professor Fisher’s personality, so nimble his wit, so genial his spirit, that it was not always easy to remember that he was one of the foremost scholars of his time.”41
From class notes taken by undergraduate Bernadotte Perrin, later a professor of Greek at Yale, it appears that Fisher largely taught by the lecture method. Perrin’s notes, however, do not convey the witty, vivacious spirit here suggested. Indeed, Fisher’s genial classroom style apparently suffered in his later years. By then, students complained that he simply repeated the contents of his textbooks. One student allegedly sat with the textbook open, occasionally adding a note should Fisher ever offer anything new.42
Bainton praises Fisher for his attempt to modernize the study of theology in the broader sense, working scientific advances into both apologetics and older theories of design.43 In general, Fisher thought that historical studies needed more emphasis on “modern” (i.e., post-476) history. Books on “universal history,” he advised, should devote more attention to history since the Roman Empire’s “fall”—an event he nevertheless deemed the most “stupendous” change in history from that time to the present. In his own Brief History of the Nations, he sought to give more space to medieval and modern history than was then customary, ancient history still dominating history textbooks.44 Fisher’s complaint suggests that as late as the 1890s, ancient history received disproportionate attention—and that covering “universal history” was deemed viable.
To acquire a vivid picture of church history, Fisher insisted, the student must know sources—not only written sources such as letters and monastic Rules, but also the evidence derived from coins, art, and other artifacts. He needs the “ipsissima verba” of the actors to get a sure grip on truth.45 The one set of lecture notes on Fisher’s course that remains does not reveal how he introduced students to primary sources or aspects of material culture, if in fact he did so.
Despite Fisher’s alleged attempt to modernize the study of Christian history, his treatment remained largely conservative as well as derivative. Many of his scholarly essays, we shall see, were devoted to warding off the assaults of more radical German scholarship.
Philip Schaff: Mercersburg and Union Theological Seminaries
Philip Schaff in his youth had served as a Privatdozent at the University of Berlin, offering lectures on the Catholic Epistles, the Gospel of John, the theology of Schleiermacher, and the doctrinal history of Protestantism.46 During his years at Mercersburg, Schaff taught courses on early, medieval, and Reformation church history, and on dogmatics—indeed, historian George Shriver reports, for one period, he taught the entire seminary curriculum. On the basis of remaining lecture notes, Shriver infers that Schaff used his class preparation as an opportunity to develop material that he would incorporate into his multivolume History of the Christian Church.47
Joining the Union Seminary faculty in 1870, Schaff was granted the Professorship of Church History only after Roswell Hitchcock’s sudden death in June 1887. In his “Autobiographical Reminiscences for My Children,” Schaff confessed, “I naturally shrank from the drudgery of preparing several courses of new lectures, and from the difficulty of filling the chair of so brilliant a lecturer as Dr. Hitchcock.” But he “had to obey,” and was inaugurated on September 22, 1887. He hoped that his move to the historical chair would enable him to finish his History of the Christian Church.48
Schaff faulted the dry and lifeless way in which church history was taught in seminaries, often approached as if it were merely a “curiosity shop.”49 “Intellectual education alone may be a curse,” he warned, as the examples of Voltaire, Rousseau, and D. F. Strauss show.50 Explaining the German educational system to American audiences, Schaff praised the “seminary” method (i.e., the seminar) as one of the most important innovations at Berlin and other German universities; he planned to introduce the method at Union.51
Schaff frequently wrote
